Do you like dice? Do you like science fiction? Then what could be better than mixing them together? This week, our hosts talk about science fiction roleplaying games, which turn out to be a little thinner on the ground than their fantasy counterparts. Listen for a behind the scenes discussion of Last Ship of the Republic, Mike’s description of the worst Jedi ever, and a retelling of our attempt to play Eclipse Phase. Uplifted octomorphs for all!
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Opening and closing theme: The Princess Who Saved Herself by Jonathan Coulton. Used with permission.
Show Notes:
The Voyage Roleplaying Game by Oren Ashkenazi
Star Trek Roleplaying Game from The Last Unicorn
Serenity Roleplaying Game from Margaret Weis Productions
USMC Torchbearer Mod by Luke Crane
Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game from West End Games
Star Wars Roleplaying Game Revised Core Rulebook from Wizards of the Coast
Star Wars: Saga Edition from Wizards of the Coast
Star Wars: Edge of the Empire from Fantasy Flight
Burning Empires by Luke Crane
Elicpse Phase from Posthuman Studios
Mage: The Ascension From White Wolf
P.S. Our bills are paid by our wonderful patrons. Could you chip in?
I’m about to use GURPS (4th edition) for a Star Trek game over roll20, I’ll let y’all know how that turns out.
Oh neat, please do!
So far it’s worked great on the character generation side and modeling a Starfleet ship. What I am most curious about is how the player dynamic goes. Given that the concept is they all players are the senior staff of a small sabre-class starship. So far the big surprise has been that they rejected having a larger more powerful if older ship based on equal parts aesthetic and desiring a smaller scale. Rather contrary to what you’d expect from players in most cases.
One scifi roll playing game that you didn’t talk about in this episode is the Warhammer Dark Heresy game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Heresy_(role-playing_game)
With Somatics in Eclipse Phase, is it possible they named it after a philosophy because the game’s trying to make strength less physical, as a way to explain why how good you are at lifting heavy things is mainly mental in the game.